Unusual 1.06 Editor Graphics glitch

[J P Wagner]

When I upgraded to 1.06 and imported my scenario I noticed that a number of my modded flags now had a white box surrounding them (See pic of Don Cossack HQ). I tried to eliminate this by using paint but it did not work. Usually, if I used the copy feature in paint to pick up an established "transparent" pixel, I could simply repaint the questioned area around the flag to make it transparent again. But now this is not working. I can paint the box different colors and the changes are shown, but I cannot eliminate the box.

I also noticed that the 1.06 bitmaps for the vanilla game now have a pink background instead of white. Does this have any significance to my problem?

[Moonslayer]

I haven't checked any graphics yet but if the background colour has changed then this will indeed be a problem. Look at the RGB values of the vanilla graphics background and transfer the exact same colour to the background of your alterred sprites. This will make 'the box' disappear.

No idea why background colours have been changed though! I will have to investigate when I get home tonight.

[Hubert Cater]

Jp Wagner,

A change that was made for Vista compatibility was to have the code look for whatever color is at pixel (0,0) the upper left hand corner of the bitmap and use it as the transparent background color.

In doing so there was one issue with the 'flag_sprites_mirrored.bmp' as the pixel at (0,0) is not the desired transparent color but rather a pixel from the pole holding the flag. If you edit the pixel at (0,0) to be the same as the white background color this should resolve the issue on your end.

[Hubert Cater]

Moonslayer, the change was made to pink, as the new code allowed me to use whatever color I needed, and pink has always been the desired color as it is much easier to see what will be transparent in game especially when using other white colors for sprites etc.

Problem is it looks like the pink color is not liked on a few systems out there but switching it back to white seems to have resolved the issue.

We are running a few more tests and if it looks like this is the final solution then I will be making a post to MODDERS to not use anything but white as there could be problems for those few users of the game.

[J P Wagner]

Hubert, thanks for the quick response and the fix. It worked!

[ February 26, 2007, 09:17 AM: Message edited by: J P Wagner ]

[Gorgin]

on my download of 1.06 almost all of the default bitmaps (terrain, river, tile, etc) have the pink background.

[Moonslayer]

Cheers HC. Pink does seem to be fairly standard as the transparent colour on other games I have used before. Now you've mentioned it, it should have been fairly obvious that the flag sprites were an exception to the 0,0 rule. Should have spotted that myself!

[Preusse]

While I have your attention: Another problem I discovered during a multiplaye session playing Thrawns European theater 2, is when you tab in and out of the game, you can sudddenly as the allies see the opponnents MPPs whereas your own are under FOW.

[Blashy]

Ah crap, I forgot to mention that last one to Hubert. I found that out a while ago. You can see the MPPs.

[Hubert Cater]

I can't seem to be able to repeat that guys... is it only with Thrawn's campaign? Also what mode of Multiplayer is this in... Hotseat, TCPIP, Email? Any specific steps I need to do to repeat this?

Any help tracking this down is always appreciated.

Hubert

[Preusse]

It was a network game, not on LAN though. I can email a save game if you like, just say the word.

[Hubert Cater]

Unfortunately a saved game won't help much as I would need to be able to connect to your partner.

I'll keep an eye out for it and see what I can do.